“Mrs. Hackfeld,” said Rachel, “in a week or two you’ll be too occupied to think about it. You’ll—” She halted abruptly, and pointed off”. “There’s Dr. Hayden coming in now. She should have a good deal of news. I’m sure we all can’t wait to get started.”
* * *
Everyone was seated, either on the benches or on the floor matting, except Maud Hayden, who stood beside her desk waiting for the last private conversation to cease. Despite her ludicrous attire—she wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, locks of her gray hair straggling out from under it, no make-up on her puffy sunburned face, several strands of colored beads around her neck, a sleeveless print dress from which her jelly arms protruded, khaki scout stockings that came to below her knees, square contour shoes that seemed Martian—she appeared more professional and zestful than any other person in the room.
When her colleagues were quiet, Maud Hayden began to address them in a manner that vacillated from the brisk scientific to the conversational maternal.
“I imagine most of you have been wondering what is going to happen next,” she said, “and I’ve called this first meeting to tell you. I’ve spent the morning since daybreak with Chief Paoti Wright and his wife Hutia Wright, both charming and friendly human beings. While Hutia has some fear of us, and consequently some reservations about what we should be allowed to see and do, Chief Paoti has overruled her on every count. Since we are here, he is determined that we shall see and do everything that we wish. He depends much—he was clear about this—on Mr. Courtney’s word that we will respect their customs, their way of life, their dignity, their tabus, and report what we shall observe and learn honestly and scientifically, while maintaining our pledged secrecy about the general location of their islands.
“Now, everything is not being offered us on a silver platter, so to speak. We shall be guided by others at the outset, offered every bit of information, introduction, cooperation that we require. After that, it is understood, we will largely be on our own. Every effort will be made to integrate us with the village and its daily life. I pleaded for this. I don’t want any special considerations. I don’t want concessions and changes made for us. I don’t want them to consider us as visitors to a zoo. And I don’t want any of you to regard them as a zoo. The understanding is that, as much as possible, we are here as fellow tribesmen from the other side of the island. Being realistic, I know it can never work that ideal way, but Paoti has promised to do his best for us, and I have, on behalf of all of you, promised that this will be our own attitude. In short, we are not here as mere outside observers, but as participant observers, trying, when we can, to eat, labor, fish, farm, frolic with them, and take part in their rites, such as their games, sports, festival. This is, to my mind, the only approach to take in finding their real cultural pattern. The degree to which we succeed will determine, for each of us, what contribution we make to anthropology, and our respective fields, with this study of The Three Sirens.
“Few of you have been in the field before. The Karpowiczes—Sam, Estelle, Mary—have been in the field several times, Marc made one trip some years ago, and Orville—I think, from this moment on, we should get on a first-name basis with one another—Orville has made a number of these field trips. However, Claire is new to this, and so are Rachel, Harriet, and Airs.—and Lisa. And so, though I may be covering old ground for the experienced ones, I want them to bear with me while I address mainly the ones to whom this is unfamiliar. In certain specifics, of course, there will be some valuable information for the veterans among you, too. So, I repeat, bear with me briefly, all of you, and when I am done, I think you will understand better your role here, what is expected of you, preliminarily what you can and cannot do, and what lies ahead for all of us.
“Now, social anthropology and study in the field may be older than you think. Among the first to leave his home—in his case Oneida, New York—and go out and scientifically observe another society was a young scholar named Henry Schoolcraft. He went among the Chippewa Indians, he made notes—good notes, recording numerous fascinating customs—for example, that when a Chippewa woman touched an object, it was automatically tainted and thereafter shunned by males of the tribe.
“However, many regard Edward Tyler, an English Quaker, as the man who made social anthropology into a science. In his long life, he went on many trips into the field, one of the most notable to Mexico. He gave us two important doctrines—that of recurrence, meaning you go out and find a similar custom or bit of folklore in Canada and Peru and Egypt and Samoa, and this gives you a lead to reconstructing prehistory—and the doctrine of survival, meaning that certain seemingly pointless behaviors that have survived the past probably had real purpose at one time. These pioneers gave greater motive to future work in the field.
“I can see from some of your faces that you fear old Maud might be winding up for a long lecture. You need not worry. This is not the time or the place for teaching anthropology. I’m just trying to make you understand the historic impetus that sent you catapulting across a great ocean to this strange place. One or two more references to history and then I promise you, no more, and we’ll delve into practical matters. The first team, a team like our own, to go out into the field and make a scientific study of a culture was one led by Alfred C. Haddon around 1898. Years before, Haddon had visited volcanic Murray Island, off New Guinea, and lived among the Papuans. The second time, he went back with a team of experts—two psychologists, a photographer, a musicologist, a linguist, a doctor, and himself, as anthropologist. The psychologists gave the natives tests in drawing and sense perception—they pioneered what Rachel and Orville will be doing here—and Haddon and the others, since the island had been somewhat corrupted by missionaries and white magistrates, toiled at reviving the rites and ceremonies of the past, when the Papuan men went naked and the women wore no more than split-leaf skirts. The team worked eight months in the field, and when they brought their findings back to Cambridge, they had proved the value of using a team of experts and had opened a new approach for future anthropologists.
“I could go on for hours speaking to you of the great anthropologists and field workers who are indirectly responsible for our being here this morning. I wish I had the time to tell you about that German genius, Franz Boas, who taught me—who taught Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Alfred Kroeber, as well—so much about collecting, tirelessly collecting, raw data. Do you know, once Boas became interested in the graying of human hair, and he went about the barber shops of New York until he had collected and classified more than one million strands of hair. I suspect that he disliked living in the field, but he was determined to verify every theory through firsthand inquiry. He was constantly in the field, from the time of his initial trip to the Arctic to live among Eskimos when he was twenty-five to his last trip among Indians when he was seventy. How much you might learn from knowing Boas, and of the other giants in anthropology—Durkheim, Crawley, Malinowski, Lowie, Benedict, Linton, Mead, and my own beloved husband, Adley Hayden—but it is enough to know that we are their heirs, and that because of what we have learned from them, we can study the Sirens’ society here with some effort at scientific precision.
“Of course, you may wonder how scientifically valid our findings can be. Anthropology, I readily admit, is caught in the middle of the unending controversy between the sciences and the humanities. Scientists like to criticize us for being too slipshod in our field methods, and say we try to measure qualities that cannot be subjected to statistical analysis. Humanists, on the other hand, like to criticize us for usurping the province of the poet by our reducing the infinite complexity of human life to flat descriptive categories. I have always contended that we must remind both sides that we, and we alone, stand as the bridge that can join the sciences and humanities. It is true that our native informants are rarely completely reliable. It is true that while we can measure the width of a hut or a skull, we cannot measure a tribesman’s deepest feelings about love and hate. It is true
that while we try to communicate our findings, while we sometimes absorb and move our audience, we perform poorly as troubadours because we are limited to passing on facts. Such are our limitations, yes, and yet, despite them, we must continue to hunt and seek scientifically, and to translate humanistically what we have discovered for the waiting world.
“Now, here we are—and you are asking yourselves, what is next? I will tell you. The investigators whom I have mentioned have taught us—and this is my own experience, too—that it is a bad policy to be aggressive or businesslike in a field study. Generally, it is less effective to call natives in by appointment, sit them down for three or four hours, and try to pump them dry. It is equally undesirable to go barging in on them blindly. If you do this, you might make an alliance with the wrong faction in the village and earn hostility and cut yourself off from the majority. The wisest approach is to learn the power structure of the community, and carefully select the most reliable informants. The best way to establish rapport is not to press. You kind of settle down in the middle of a society and wait, play a waiting game, rely on their natural curiosity and on your own instinct to tell you when it is right to make a move. The major problem is always finding the key informant, the one person who links past and present, who is articulate, who is honest, who will speak freely of his own world and wants to know what things are like in your world.
“In the matter of rapport, we are extremely lucky. We have our entree. Technically, we have been invited here. Last night, we were made a part of the society. We have not one key informant, but two to start with. We have Chief Paoti Wright, the head man, and a wise one, and we have Thomas Courtney, who has been here a fairly long time and knows their ways and our own. I will work with Paoti. I believe we will have an excellent interpersonal relationship. As for Air. Courtney, he has agreed to be available to all of you, to guide and assist you in your respective fields.
“Certain short cuts have been arranged for you, but most of the time you will be on your own. When there is a problem you cannot overcome alone, I would suggest you come to me with it or arrange to discuss it with Mr. Courtney. In a half-hour, Mr. Courtney will be here to start you off. He will introduce you to the village, to the places you want to see, to the activities you want to observe or participate in, to potential informants who know of you and may help you. Once you are introduced this way, you are independent and expected to make your own progress.
“Now to take you up one by one, starting with you, Harriet. Nurses are not standard personnel on a field team, but they have been known to come along, and have often proved very useful. I recall that when Robert Redfield went to the Yucatan to study the Mayan village of Chan Kom, he took a nurse along. The Mayans were unfriendly, but the nurse made friends through healing some of their sick, and the introduction of modern hygiene, and then the tribe was impressed and cooperative. You’ll find the Sirens has a good-sized but crude clinic or dispensary supervised by a young man named Vaiuri. You will be taken by Mr. Courtney to meet him today. There is an understanding that you will be permitted to assist this Vaiuri. While one of your functions here, Harriet, is to take care of us, your more important function will be to learn what you can of native illnesses and medical remedies and make copious notes of your findings. Also, if Vaiuri proves amenable, you can introduce new methods of treatment and sanitation, so long as you don’t jostle any of their beloved customs or step on any tabus.
“As for you, Rachel, I had a devil of a time trying to explain psychoanalysis to Paoti and Hutia. It made no sense to them. They thought it childish. But I think I convinced them that it was a special kind of magic that worked wonders with disturbed people. Anyway, while they don’t seem to have any true-blue psychopaths on this island, they do have their small minority of unhappy persons, of maladjusted ones. Hutia heads a board of five elder men and women called the Marriage Hierarchy. All marital complaints, pending applications for divorce, come to them. So she has the case histories that are acted upon every month. She agreed to let you select three patients from among a half-dozen or more current cases, and go ahead and do what you can for them with your own brand of cure. You will meet with Hutia today, interrogate some of the cases, make your choices, and proceed. Incidentally, Mr. Courtney will have a private hut for your consultations—it’ll be available this afternoon.
“Now you, Lisa, I made it known that you wished to study the primitive dance. I must say, Paoti was delighted, and you couldn’t have come at a better time. They are just beginning to rehearse their program for the annual festival. Dancing dominates the entertainment, so you’ll have a chance to witness, even participate in, the best they have to offer. The woman named Oviri is in charge, a sort of director, and you shall meet her shortly, and see what is possible.
“Orville, your situation is a little different, since your study of comparative sexual behavior enters all our areas. I imagine you’ll be doing fairly much what Cora DuBois did on the island of Alor in 1937—apply psychodynamic techniques to these villagers—I know DuBois employed the Rorschach successfully, and I suppose you will, too. We discussed your possible schedule, and it was decided that for the first day you would be oriented to the sexual customs of the community—I think you’ll see the Social Aid Hut today—and be introduced to a variety of the natives of both sexes. After that, you can attempt to establish some kind of rapport, and pick the informants most suitable, and question or test them, as you see fit.
“Next, the family Karpowicz. Well, it would be gratuitous of me, Sam, to tell an old hand like you anything. Mr. Courtney says you will have your darkroom, behind your hut, by the day after tomorrow. You may shoot your movies and stills, in and around the village, as you wish, no restrictions. When you go further afield—remember the incident at the beach—you must be accompanied by Mr. Courtney or Moreturi or someone they designate. As to your botanical work, you are free to roam anywhere.
“I’ve arranged nothing specific yet for you, Estelle. I assume you’ll be helping Sam out, as usual. If you want to go into other things, the workaday female life here, the cleaning, cooking, laundering, weaving, all that, it would be helpful to me. I think we can discuss that privately, and see how far you want to go. I did follow the suggestion you and Sam made about your young lady, and we have the green light … Don’t look so apprehensive, Mary. It’s a refreshing project; it’ll give you a great conversation piece when you return to Albuquerque. They have a rather primitive school-house—or school hut, series of huts—at the far part of the village, and there is one group of students from fourteen to sixteen. You may attend this class, if you care to—no pencils, no books, no blackboards, no homework, if that relieves you—all word of mouth and demonstration by an intelligent male instructor named Mr. Manao. I think you might find it a lark meeting Sirens youngsters of your own age, and, for six weeks, learning what they learn. The instructor will be expecting you to look in on them today, and, of course, I’d like a full report on your experiences. I promise to give you credit in my paper—and a lovely gift at Christmas.
“That brings me to my own family. Marc, I expect you’ll want to devote yourself largely to one informant, as I myself intend to do. Chief Paoti is expecting you this morning, and he may have some suggestions. You may start with one of his family or one of the marginal people in the village. And you, Claire, I’m hoping that you’ll assist me—in fact, I’m rather counting on it—and also act as sort of a liaison between me and Chief Paoti and Mr. Courtney.
“As I have told all of you, your participation will be unrestricted and freewheeling, within the boundaries of certain deep-rooted tabus. From my conversation with Chief Paoti, I know that the Social Aid Hut and the Sacred Hut are tabu and may be entered only with the express permission of Paoti himself. Visiting the two adjacent atolls—the ancient gods, still worshiped by the conservative, are supposed to dwell there—is tabu, unless you are accompanied by a villager. In some of the huts you will find dark-gray or black basalt idols, and touching or t
ampering with these is tabu. The kinship system—children belong to a broad kinship group consisting of parents, uncles, aunts, and so forth—this system prevails, and incest is a strong tabu. So is physical violence. You may be provoked beyond endurance, or ill-treated, but you never strike another or do him bodily harm. Instead, you take your grievance to the Chief. Killing, even in retribution or for punishment of a major crime, is considered barbaric. An ailing person is considered to be invaded by higher spirits who are judging him, and such a person is tabu to mortal hands, except those with mana, with high official privilege. All the ocean surrounding this place is held tabu to strangers. Therefore, entering or leaving the main island is not permitted, except with the consent of the Chief. There are probably a few minor tabus Paoti overlooked. When I learn them, I shall pass them on to all of you.
“While on the subject, I might add that anthropology has a few tabus of its own—restrictions, that is—on certain practices or behavior. These are not hard, fast rules, but represent a code gained from long experience. First off, never, never lie to them, about yourself or your own customs. If they find out you’ve lied, you will be rejected. When you realize you’ve made a misstatement, admit your error at once and clarify what you really meant. Don’t become angry if they tease or mock you, or laugh at you, for they may be testing you. Ride out such situations, and you will build rapport. If you find yourself blocked by one of their superstitions, don’t bully them or try to argue with them about their beliefs. Let the superstition stand, and skip that phase of your work. I recollect that on one field trip among the Andamanese, Adley tried to take pictures, and the natives were horrified, positive that the camera stole their souls. Well, Adley had to put aside his camera and forget photography. In dealing with these Sirens people, try not to be eccentric or stuffy or pompous. Condescension will get you nowhere. After all, who is to say if our way is superior to their own?
The Three Sirens Page 29
